Cuba: Castro’s revolution turns 50

Fifty years is enough, said Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post. I am referring to the life span of Cuba’s totalitarian Communist government, but also to the shortsighted U.S. approach to our tiny island neighbor. It was, improbably, 50 years ago last week that 32-year-old Fidel Castro seized control of Cuba. And though the ailing Fidel has handed power to his slightly younger, slightly less tyrannical brother, Raúl, Fidel’s revolution continues—thanks in large part to “five decades of counterproductive American policy.” It’s hard to imagine we would be marking this grim anniversary were it not for the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which has served mainly to shield Cuba from the forces of “freedom and prosperity” that proved so transformative in the former Soviet Union and, more recently, in China. “If a set of policies haven’t produced results for 50 years, it really is time to try something else.”

Let’s remember who the bad guys are, said U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez in The Washington Times. The key question has always been, “When will the Cuban government change its policy toward its people?” Presidents Carter and Clinton both made conciliatory gestures toward Cuba, only to have Castro declare victory and further tighten the screws of repression. Unfortunately, said Anthony DePalma in The New York Times, Raúl seems to have “learned some of his older brother’s moves.” He says he is willing to release some political prisoners, for instance, but only if the U.S. frees five convicted Cuban spies. He has made superficial gestures toward openness, but has done nothing to extend basic freedoms. Barack Obama says he would normalize relations with Cuba if it moved toward democracy. But as somebody married to a Cuban-American whose family has “been whipsawed between hope and despair” for decades, I’m not holding my breath. Make no mistake, “Cuba still belongs to Fidel.”

But maybe not for long, said The Economist in an editorial. Forget about the embargo. The mere fact of Obama’s election, after Fidel publicly assured his people that racist Americans “would never accept a black man as president,” already has many Cubans wondering whether the evils of capitalism have been exaggerated. Then there’s the plunging price of oil, which threatens “the bounteous subsidies Cuba has been receiving from Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.” In the end, Raúl Castro may have no choice but to allow some free-market reforms and perhaps even some political debate. After a half-a-century of Communist misery, “that would be a revolution indeed.”

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